Tea Party Beats Republicans in Recent Rasmussen Poll

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought it was unusual for the Republican Party to be so anti-government, since they too were part of that much hated government body. Little did I realize that the GOP would get their wish, at the expense of their own party's viability, as a recent conservative Rasmussen poll indicated:

Air America: In a national phone survey, Rasmussen asked, "Suppose the Tea Party organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district or the Tea Party candidate from your district?" The Democrats had the largest percentage of votes--36% percent--but a mythical Tea Party Party beat the Republicans by five points. More than 23 percernt gave their support to the Tea Partiers and only 18 percent were willing to commit to the GOP, leaving 22 percent of voters unsure.

The Tea Party "movement" has a 70 percent favorable rating among Republicans and 43 percent favorable rating among the unaffiliated.

The question missing from the Rasmussen poll is whether the Republican Party would lose more members than it would gain by absorbing, whole hog, the teabagger agenda. If that's the case, we could be entering a whole new world of political insanity.